Miccosukees lose round in legal war against IRS over unpaid taxes

The Miccosukee Indians must turn over loads of confidential
financial records that could help the U.S. government as it seeks to
collect tens of millions of dollars in taxes from tribal members who
received gambling profits as personal income, a federal appeals court
ruled Monday.

The West Miami-Dade Tribe, which operates a casino
complex that features bingo-style slot machines and poker, has run out
of legal moves. The 600-member tribe can ask for a full hearing before
the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, but legal experts say it
would be futile.

A negotiated tax settlement between the tribe and
the Internal Revenue Service would likely be the next scenario. The
tribe’s main lawyer, Bernardo Roman III, did not return a call for
comment.

The Miccosukees, deploying their status as a sovereign nation,
have been fighting for years with the IRS over access to their banking,
securities and other records. The federal agency says it should be
allowed to examine those records because it has reason to believe the
tribe has failed to deduct and withhold income distributed from its
gambling enterprise to members for the past decade.

The appeals
court sided with the IRS, rejecting the tribe’s sovereign immunity
argument that the IRS has no legal right to its records held by American
Express, Citibank, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia Bank. The three-judge
panel also rejected the tribe’s argument that the IRS’ summonses for its
financial documents dating from 2006 to 2009 were issued for an
“improper purpose” and were “overbroad.”

The appellate panel, like
a Miami federal judge who has handled the raging dispute, ruled that
“Indian tribes may not rely on tribal… immunity to bar a [legal action]
by a superior sovereign,” the U.S. government.

The federal
agency’s legal battle with the Miccosukees began in 2005, when the
tribe’s high-profile lawyers argued to the IRS that tribal members
didn’t owe any income taxes. Each member receives from $120,000 to
$160,000 a year from the tribe’s gambling profits. The tribe, which has
tried to use its sovereign status to block the IRS’ civil probe, might
now be on the hook for taxes owed by many of its 600 members. More from Jay Weaver here.